Privacy

Our privacy commitment

The Australian Council for International Development (ACFID; ABN 54645667467’ ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’) will endeavour to handle your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and the Australian Privacy Principles.

This Privacy Policy summarises how we handle your personal information. We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time by updating this page. The revised Privacy Policy will take effect as of the time and date it is posted on our website.

What is personal information?

Personal information means information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable:

whether the information or opinion is true or not; and

whether or not the information or opinion is recorded in a material form.

The types of personal information we collect may include your name, date of birth, gender, contact information, credit/debit card information and other information about your history with or relationship to ACFID.

Whose personal information do we collect?

We may collect personal information from people who are connected to our operations and activities – including employees, donors, research study participants, recipients of support services, participants in advocacy campaigns, members, suppliers, volunteers and service providers.

How do we collect your personal information?

Where possible, we will collect your personal information directly from you. This may be by direct contact in person or by email), on the telephone (for example, if you contact the ACFID reception, or if you answer a research questionnaire), or online (for example, if you sign up for an event online).

Why do we collect your personal information?

We may collect your personal information for a number of purposes, including:

Support services: to provide you with information and support services, and to evaluate and report on these services

Research: to conduct and/or fund research into the causes of aid and development

Volunteering and other support: to enable you to assist us with volunteering, advocacy and other activities where we seek assistance

Marketing: to communicate with you about products, services, campaigns, causes and events

Other issues: communicating with you in relation to our operations, activities and objectives, to verify your identity, to improve and evaluate our programs and services, and to comply with relevant laws.

Where we collect your personal information for a specific purpose not outlined above, we will provide you with a collection notice which explains the primary purpose and any related secondary purposes for which we are collecting your personal information.

Website usage information and cookies

When you access our website, we may use software embedded in our website (such as Javascript) and we may place small data files (or cookies) on your computer or other device to collect information about which pages you view and how you reach them, what you do when you visit a page, the length of time you remain on the page, and how we perform in providing content to you.

A cookie does not identify individuals personally, but it does identify computers. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, and this will provide you with an opportunity to either accept or reject it in each instance.

We may gather your IP address as part of our business activities and to assist with any operational difficulties or support issues with our services. This information does not identify you personally.

We use Google Analytics cookies to inform and optimise content for you based on your past visits to our site.

Google Analytics informs us how visitors use our site based on their browsing habits. This allows us to improve our site to make it easier for you to find the information you are seeking.

Where is your personal information stored?

We take all reasonable steps to protect all of the personal information we hold from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. Your personal information will be stored on a password-protected electronic database, which may be on our database or a database maintained by a cloud-based hosting service. Backups of electronic information are written to drives which are stored offsite.

Hard-copy information is generally stored in our offices, which are secured to prevent entry by unauthorised people. Any personal information not actively being used is archived, usually for seven (7) years.

We take reasonable steps to protect the privacy and security of that information, but we are not liable for any unauthorised access or use of that information. Your personal information will stay on the database indefinitely until you advise that you would like it removed, unless we de-identify it or destroy it earlier in accordance with privacy law requirements.

Complaints

If you have any queries or would like to make a complaint relating to our Privacy Policy or the manner in which we handle your personal information, please contact our Business Manager on 02 6285 1816 or email [email protected]. We endeavour to respond to complaints and queries within fourteen days of their receipt. If you are dissatisfied with our response, you may refer the matter to the Australian Information (Privacy) Commissioner (see www.oaic.gov.au).

If you do not provide some or all of the personal information requested, we may not be able to offer you services or provide you with information about our causes, events, programs and projects.